Azure Backup now supports item-level recovery (ILR) for Azure virtual machines that use Premium SSD v2 and Ultra disks. It works with both 512-byte and 4 KB logical sector sizes. The announcement was published on Azure Updates on 2026-10-23 (id 577963) with status Generally Available.

Until now, file recovery failed for VMs with these disk types. Customers had to restore a disk or the whole VM to get a single file back. ILR removes that detour.

What changed

You can recover individual files and folders from a recovery point without restoring a full disk or VM. Generate a recovery script (Linux) or executable (Windows) in the Azure portal, CLI or PowerShell, run it on a compatible machine, then browse the recovery point and copy out what you need. The workflow is the same as for Standard HDD, Standard SSD and Premium SSD v1 disks.

ILR also works on recovery points from VMs with mixed disk types, and exposes all eligible disks.

Requirements

  • Windows VMs, or Linux VMs running Ubuntu, RHEL, Debian, Oracle Linux, SLES or openSUSE.
  • The VM must be an Azure Resource Manager VM protected in a Recovery Services vault.
  • Backing up Premium SSD v2 and Ultra disks requires the Enhanced backup policy.
  • The recovery script must run in elevated mode by an administrator on a machine that meets the OS, network and access requirements. It asks for a password and disconnects automatically after 12 hours by default.

Limitations

Per the Azure VM backup support matrix, file-level restore is not supported for:

  • Encrypted VMs (Azure Disk Encryption). Restore the full VM instead.
  • Shared disks, temporary drives, deduplicated disks and disks with Write Accelerator enabled.
  • Network-restricted storage accounts.
  • Windows Storage Spaces.

On the same VM, restoring files is also not supported with Linux LVM or RAID arrays, or special network settings. Run the script on another compatible VM.

Regions

Neither the Azure Updates entry nor the Learn pages state a region restriction for ILR itself. Geo-redundant vaults and Cross-Region Restore for Premium SSD v2 and Ultra disks are limited to the regions where those disks are available, and the Learn region lists differ between the two disk types. Check the support matrix for your region before relying on cross-region recovery.

What to check now

  1. Confirm Premium SSD v2 and Ultra disk VMs are backed up with the Enhanced policy.
  2. Test ILR against a sample VM and measure how long recovery takes in your environment.
  3. Check that the VMs are not encrypted with Azure Disk Encryption and do not use shared disks or Write Accelerator.
  4. Add ILR to runbooks as an alternative to disk or full VM restore for single-file recovery.

Sources